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Learning how to read food labels is like looking at a prescription for your health and your life. Dr. Oz (from Oprah Winfrey Show) says to look for red-flag ingredients—if they’re listed among the top five ingredients overall, steer clear!

Sugar
When you eat or drink sugar, Dr. Oz says the sudden energy surge your body experiences is followed by an insulin surge that rapidly drops the blood sugar level—so two hours later, you feel famished and tired. To keep an even keel, Dr. Oz says to replace simple carbohydrates with complex ones so the absorption is more controlled and you experience long-term satiety. “Sugar is supposed to be eaten, of course,” says Dr. Oz, “but it should come together with fat or some element like fiber—as you would find in fruit—so you can absorb it a bit more slowly.”High fructose corn syrup
Although they taste sweet, Dr. Oz says food products that contain high fructose corn syrup should be avoided. Dr. Oz says the body processes the sugar in high-fructose corn syrup differently than it does old-fashioned cane or beet sugar, which in turn alters your body’s natural ability to regulate appetite. “It blocks the ability of a chemical called leptin, which is the way your fat tells your brain it’s there,” says Dr. Oz. “It’s not so much the 150 calories in the soda pop—it’s the fact at that same meal you will normally consume an extra hundred calories of food than you would have.”Enriched wheat flour (white flour)
Contrary to what its name suggests, Dr. Oz says enriched flour is actually poor in nutrition because most of the grain’s nutrients are destroyed in the refining process. “The reason they enrich it is because they already stripped out anything that was worth a darn in it, and they add a little bit back so it doesn’t look so bad,” says Dr. Oz.

Instead, he says to look for whole grains and whole grain flours. “It has its kernels, it has its B vitamins—all the things you want to be in there,” says Dr. Oz.Saturated fat
Found mainly in animal products, Dr. Oz says to avoid saturated fats that are solid at room temperature, like lard. “You can actually use this kind of material for furniture polish—lots of fun things—but don’t put it in you,” he says.Hydrogenated oil
To increase their shelf life, Dr. Oz says certain oils are hydrogenated. This process turns the oil into a solid at room temperature, but it also makes the oil unhealthy. “This stuff is great because it doesn’t go bad, but it’s very bad for you,” says Dr. Oz. Avoid food products that contain hydrogenated oil, often labeled as “trans fats.”